To the beach...

We took a wonderful day trip to Canon Beach yesterday on the Oregon Coast! It was fantastic out, and was expected to be in the mid 60's at the beach and sunny, which was great as well. With the beach being only a mere hour and a half away, we need to take advantage of it more often! It was a blast. I took a few pictures to show you how the trip went. 

Driving down Highway 14 moments after leaving our house, we ran into billows of smoke...

It's the historic steam train that comes once every few years or so!

That thing is louuuuud! It came by our house again this morning, and I sprinted outside to catch a glimpse of it across the street! It was choo chooing louder than I ever could think possible and my ears were just going beserk. But in the flicker of an eye it was gone. 

We decided to haul Tripper along for the ride. Smile for the camera man...

(Just kidding, we loved having him along)

There are a lot of houses on the hill overlooking Portland.

Gotta stay hydrated!

I purchased a little snack to have on the car ride up. It's fun handing a person a random jelly bean without them looking and having them guess one of the 41 different flavors! 

And then all of the sudden we made the amazing discovery that you could indeed replicate the taste of a Blueberry Muffin in your mouth with only 5 beans!! 2 of which being buttered popcorn!!!

Let me tell you...It tastes exactly like a blueberry muffin. 

Well we finally made it to Canon Beach! We always stop at the only grocery store in town and get some food to eat on the beach. They have appropriate benches for you to sit down outside. We got some great sandwich makings, peanuts, my Dad ran across the street and got some Canon Beach bread and 5 maple bars, one for each person! 

Sorry Obama...

First beach we went to was Hug Point beach. My family had been here before and I remembered all the rocks jutting out from the sea. There were way more rocks on the beach this time though than last, and the tide was all the way up to the rocks for half the time we were there! So people had to dodge the surf as it came up. Brigitta almost got it bad when she was laying on her towel, but somehow it always stopped inches short of her to my dismay...

Look in this picture...see that tent thingy? Well a rogue wave came up and smashed through all their stuff! Trip had to rescue a flip flop that the ocean was trying to eat up while they all scrambled to get their stuff intact!

Him and I went and explored one of the rocks and a hidden cove.

It may look unusually beautiful out, and it was very warm and pleasant, but don't let that fool you. Getting into the water is a painful process! Once your body goes numb, it is alright, but until then it feels like you are getting stabbed by thousand of icicles! All part of the fun experience that is the Oregon Coast!

"The ocean water along the Oregon Coast is consistently about 50°F/10°C. In the winter it gets down to 47°F/8°C and in the summer it usually tops out at 52°F/11°C. That means that as long as the air is moving inland—the normal wind direction—it is chilly air."

50 degrees? Perfect for some boogeyboarding action!! Gitta and I were trying out our new boards. Trip came out to join the fun for a little bit, but the board popped up while he was going and smashed into his mouth causing him to bite his tongue. He always seems to get hurt! 

This was the part of the trip were we found out you can be entertained by the smallest things. We buried a shaft of driftwood in the ground, then decided to shimmy our feet around until we sunk down ourselves. It became a competition to see who could sink down the lowest. We could only get down to our knees, but I discovered what it would be like to be as short as Gemma...yikes! I prefer being 6' anyday!

Then we found out that you could extend all the way back parallel to the ground and be anchored into the sand. That was a weird feeling, and it was a pain to pull yourself back up!

So everyone, this is the famous Haystack Rock that is the posterchild of Canon Beach. I have so many memories of family reunions by Tolovana beach (which was where we headed around 3:00) and waking up early to go check out the awesome tidepools around Haystack Rock. Trip had never seen it before because his family usually goes to Seaside. I'm biased towards Canon Beach's quaint small style to town.  

The saltwater did some serious action to his hair which stuck straight up on end. I was lame and forgot to really take any pictures of Tolovana beach, which was much larger and unfortunately more crowded as it was a Saturday and was very sunny as well. Here is a rundown of what we did there:

- Kicked soccer ball back and forth
- Met Russians who wanted to play with us
- Drew small soccerfield in the hard/mid packed sand
- Played awesome game of beach soccer for 2 solid hours, building up an intense sweat and unfortunately hardcore sunburns on our backs.
- Trip and I's team beat the other team.
- Some Mexicans came by and told us to go play baseball, an American sport, because they all thought we were American because we were white. They just wanted to use our beach sand field. We told them they could play the winner, which happened to be Trip's and I's team.
- Our 4v4 team thrashed them much to our satisfaction. Capped by an amazing volley off a throw in by Tripper which hit one of their huge guys who was standing in the goal taking up the entire goal in the belly and went in FOR THE VICTORY!
- Trip and I went off jumping for joy and jumped in the ocean
- We came back and all the Mexicans were gone...weird...probably playing Baseball.

I found a Fiat 500, a car I have never seen in America!

Anyways, Tolovana was so awesome!!! I had a blast playing soccer with those guys. We hit the small beachside town to get some dinner. I think we went to a place called Fireside because all their french Fries were called Fireside Logs. I remembered going there like 5 years ago which was a good memory! It was delicious and Trip and I both devoured our Country Fried Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, and Salad in about 10 minutes. It was capped off with some delicious carrot cake afterwards. 

These were the fish on the wall. The one next to my head was valued at $900! I was amazed!

Gotta have some cheesy pictures I suppose...

This was me walking backwards pointing at the tennis courts but it looks like I'm pointing at my Dad walking to the car. Unfortunately I wasn't looking and slipped off the curb you see behind me and almost into that Audi behind it haha!

I thought this was a sweet picture, looks like a tropical island mountain even though that isn't a palm tree.

I forgot to mention that whilst my family was waiting for Dinner at Fireside Trip and I ran across the street to the candy shop and got tons of candy for the ride home! Saltwater Taffy, Rips, and most importantly JAWBREAKERS!!!

And that is the story of our perfect day!